Web Development Live

The browser, that porthole onto the broad horizon of the Web, is about to get some fancy new window dressing.

Next month, after three years of development and six months of public testing, Mozilla, the insurgent browser developer that rose from the ashes of Netscape, will release Firefox 3.0. It will feature a few tricks that could change the way people organize and find the sites they visit most frequently.

Not to be outdone, Microsoft recently took the wraps off the first public test version of the latest edition of Internet Explorer, which is used by about 75 percent of all computer owners, according to Net Applications, a market share tracking firm. The finished version of Internet Explorer 8 could be released by the end of the year and is expected to have additional features.

Even Apple, which once politely kept its Safari browser within the confines of its own devices, is making a somewhat controversial push to get it onto the computers of people who use Windows PCs.

In other words, the browser war the skirmish that landed Microsoft in antitrust trouble in the ’90s is heating up again.

“The typical browser for today’s consumer doesn’t look all that different than it did 10 years ago,” said Larry Cheng, a partner at Fidelity Ventures, one of the firms that invested in Flock, a browser start-up. “That is an unsustainable trend that is the launching point for the second browser war, which will not be won by monopolistic muscle but by innovation.”

America Online, which acquired Netscape, spun off the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation in 2003. Its Firefox browser soon inspired an open-source movement backed by computer enthusiasts. Early versions of Firefox introduced features like a built-in pop-up blocker to kill ads, and tabbed browsing, which lets users toggle between Web windows.

Firefox now has 170 million users around the world and an 18 percent share of the browser market, according to Net Applications. That is especially impressive given that most of its users have made the active choice to download the software, while Internet Explorer is installed on most PCs at the factory.

In addition to giving Microsoft a kick in its competitive pants, Firefox has also reinforced for the high-tech industry the financial and strategic value of the browser. In 2004, Google struck a deal with Mozilla to include a Google search box tucked into a corner of the Firefox browser. According to Mozilla’s most recent tax documents, in 2006 Google paid Mozilla $65 million for the resulting traffic to its search listings.

“People in the industry foresee a time in which for many people, the only thing they’ll need on a computer is a browser,” said Mitch Kapor, the software pioneer who now sits on the board of the Mozilla Foundation and has created a start-up, FoxMarks, that is developing a tool to synchronize bookmarks between computers. “The browser is just extraordinarily strategic.”

That notion has helped to rekindle the browser wars and has resulted in the latest wave of innovation. Firefox 3.0, for example, runs more than twice as fast as the previous version while using less memory, Mozilla says.

The browser is also smarter and maintains three months of a user’s browsing history to try to predict what site he or she may want to visit. Typing the word “football” into the browser, for example, quickly generates a list of all the sites visited with “football” in the name or description.

Firefox has named this new tool the “awesome bar” and says it could replace the need for people to maintain long and messy lists of bookmarks. It will also personalize the browser for an individual user.

“Sitting at somebody else’s computer and using their browser is going to become a very awkward experience,” said Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation.

Internet Explorer 8, from Microsoft, promises its own set of tricks. One new tool, Web slices, allows a user to bookmark a dynamic piece of a Web site, like an online auction or a sports score, and save it in the margin of the browser, where the user can watch as it changes.

Another new feature, called activities, allows users to highlight text on a page, click on it, then instantly send it to another site, like a mapping, e-mail or blogging service.

Asked whether Firefox’s increasing popularity had motivated these and other improvements, Mr. Hachamovitch of Microsoft said only, “We love to compete.” But he did say that amid the new competitive pressures, “the quality and quantity of my team has gone up significantly.”

His group will have one other company besides Mozilla to keep its eye on: Apple’s Safari Web browser has a little over 5 percent of the market, according to Net Applications, and subsists mostly on the loyalty of devoted Mac and iPhone owners.

But in March, deploying the kind of strategic jujitsu more commonly associated with Microsoft in the past, Apple began using the automatic update software that is packaged with its iTunes music player to deliver Safari onto the computers of people who use Windows. (Users had to specifically decline the Safari offer if they didn’t want the browser to be downloaded to their computers.)

The tactic irked even Apple fans in the blogosphere, along with Apple’s browser rivals. But it was at least partly successful: Net Applications reported that Apple’s market share on Windows computers had tripled since March.

In a statement released last month addressing the comments about the maneuver, Apple said it had made it easier for customers to distinguish minor updates from new programs delivered through the update software.

Apple’s boldness underscores the new importance of the Web browser in a world that is increasingly shifting online.

Shawn Hardin, chief executive of Flock, which is developing a browser that helps users share photos, videos and blog entries more easily, said consumers would ultimately benefit from the new browser battle.

SITTING on the porch at Finca Torrenova, his 800-acre retreat on this Mediterranean island, Martin Varsavsky ticks off the credentials of the group of Internet entrepreneurs finishing lunch at a nearby table.

“He has 40 million uniques, he has 50 million, and he has 8 million,” Mr. Varsavsky says, referring to the number of visitors to Web sites owned by his guests many of whom are also business associates and have joined him for several days of brainstorming about the digital future.

These days, commercial victory on the Internet is all about scale, and Mr. Varsavsky, a 48-year-old from Argentina, can be forgiven for speaking longingly and in detail about his peers’ achievements. No stranger to success he has had a tidy crop of new media and telecommunications hits since the 1990s he is still struggling to bring his newest Internet venture to fruition.

Three years ago, aiming to create a global wireless network, he founded FON, a company based in Madrid that wants to unlock the potential power of the social Internet. FON’s gamble is that Internet users will share a portion of their wireless connection with strangers in exchange for access to wireless hotspots controlled by others.

And as he struggles to expand the FON network, Mr. Varsavsky faces particular hurdles now that the Internet’s commercial side has reached a crossroads. Born a few decades ago as an anarchic, digital version of a barn-raising, the wireless Internet is now a battleground between two giant technology consortiums seeking to rein in the Web’s chaotic openness in favor of creating uniform, global access built upon wireless data networks.

The two camps, known as WiMax and L.T.E., for “long-term evolution,” are both top-down, highly structured approaches that will cost billions of dollars to build and may close a door on some of the architectural openness that led to the rapid growth of the Internet.

But their potential advantage is that closed standards can encourage the kind of growth that offers more access to mainstream consumers and business users, as occurred when Microsoft imposed a measure of conformity on software development.

For his part, Mr. Varsavsky hopes that FON can offer a middle ground deploying the original, bottom-up strengths of the early Internet movement and at the same time wedding them to a more formal, corporate approach to expansion.

Although FON faces huge obstacles in realizing those ambitions, the company also has a growing number of devotees.

“The wireless Internet market today is fragmented and complex it can be accessed through 3G operators, through WiMax, through private hotspots, through paid hotspots and through corporate networks,” said Michael Jackson, a partner at Mangrove Capital in London and a former FON board member. “In summary, it is a nightmare for a consumer. FON can and will change this.”

Undeterred, Mr. Varsavsky says that what he currently lacks in scale he can make up for in huge cost savings, particularly because FON avoids the expensive proposition of having to build a worldwide network of cellular towers and Wi-Fi nodes from scratch.

MR. VARSAVSKY has worked overtime trying to line up more high-profile partners for FON. To that end, he traveled to Cupertino, Calif., last fall to meet with Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple.

During that 90-minute meeting, Mr. Varsavsky says, the two men discussed why a partnership might make sense.

Apple has sold millions of its Wi-Fi routers to residential customers, and its community of Wi-Fi users who share router access would be an ideal platform for FON. For his part, Mr. Jobs had developed an interest in Wi-Fi sharing because of the expanding number of iPhone users who are often frustrated by locked Wi-Fi access points.

Mr. Varsavsky says he left the meeting with the uncomfortable feeling that Apple might end up as a competitor rather than as a partner. But it wasn’t only because of Mr. Jobs’s legendary stubbornness that the Apple meeting apparently went awry. Mr. Varsavsky’s own substantial ego also came into play something he freely acknowledges when he talks about how he first got into business.

That attitude surfaced in other forums as well. In high school in Argentina during the 1970s, he says, he persuaded classmates to open their own office supply store to compete with a store across the street from their school. He also declared his interest in left-leaning politics, which he said attracted the attention of the Argentine military junta that was purging high schools of dissidents. In the “dirty war” of 1976-83, the government killed thousands it suspected of being leftists.

An officer told the school to expel him, Mr. Varsavsky says, and he left for Brazil. Around the same time, he believes, his cousin was kidnapped and killed by the military. The Varsavsky family fled to the United States, and Mr. Varsavsky earned his undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy at New York University in 1981. He later attended Columbia University, where he received graduate degrees in international affairs and business administration.

MR. VARSAVSKY says start-ups got into his blood during graduate school, when he made his first million in a real estate foray: renovating and reselling lofts in New York.

“I used the most money of my own in a company where I lost it all, and I consider it my business black eye,” he recalls, saying that he also drew a valuable lesson from the misadventure: “I don’t invest on my own. If other people don’t want to back me, it’s a sanity check.”

TO that end, Mr. Varsavsky has become a tireless networker, traveling the world to participate in a continuous parade of technology conferences and cultivating a global retinue of friends and contacts. He has also been active on the philanthropic front, earning kudos from a onetime resident of the White House.

“Martin represents the future of entrepreneurial culture and is helping to transform the way people give,” former President Bill Clinton says. “He has found different ways to use his acute business sense and creativity to improve our world and the lives of others.”

This month, Mr. Varsavsky brought together more than 70 Internet business people and technologists from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States for a conclave on his Menorca farm. Some guests represented the more than 20 digital enterprises in which he has a stake; others were “friends of Martin,” a loose-knit group that comprises his informal business network around the world.

The four-day conclave featured several unscripted “tech talks” in which entrepreneurs described problems they faced building their businesses. Participants included Lukasz Wejchert, the chief executive of Onet, Poland’s dominant Internet portal.

Deals with companies like Onet will be crucial if Mr. Varsavsky is to make good on his goal of having a million FON customers on each of three continents by 2010. The two companies recently came close to a deal, Mr. Wejchert says, but Onet decided that it was still to early for it to become an Internet service provider in Poland because the regulatory environment worked against new entrants.

That major players like Onet are beginning to find FON a potentially profitable partner is promising, and Mr. Varsavsky’s formidable networking abilities with politicians and entrepreneurs are also a plus. Ultimately, however, FON’s success will hinge on its strategic soundness and operational prowess not on Mr. Varsavsky’s skills at working the cocktail circuit.

He likes to refer to FON as a “revolution,” but so far his crusade has had difficulty gathering momentum because formal corporate alliances have been slow to jell.

In Mr. Varsavsky’s approach, FON’s business is subsidized by non-Foneros passing Web surfers who buy time for access to the network which he can then share with FON’s customers. The approach is different from that of Boingo, a Wi-Fi aggregator based in Los Angeles that charges users a monthly fee for using hotspots while they are traveling.

Yet both FON and Boingo have faced significant resistance from Internet service providers that carefully restrict access to their customers, leaving the idea of a seamless wireless Internet based on Wi-Fi technology an unfulfilled dream so far.

Mr. Varsavsky said he initially hoped that selling $30 Wi-Fi routers embedded with FON software would be all he needed to expand the ranks of Foneros around the globe. But this approach failed to gain traction fast enough, and he shifted gears. Now he is trying to steadily stack up distribution deals with I.S.P.’s.

While some I.S.P.’s have ignored his company, Mr. Varsavsky says FON has gained ground among I.S.P.’s that are looking for a way to attract new customers in competitive markets as well as to compete with high-speed wireless cellular networks.

FON now has a growing range of alliances, including ones with the BT Group, Neuf Cegetel in France, Livedoor, and Time Warner in the United States, as well as a recent agreement with the city of Geneva, which is distributing hundreds of FON routers to residents. Now strongest in Britain, France and Japan, FON has recently made progress with new agreements with two major Japanese retailers and a Taiwanese I.S.P. And Mr. Varsavsky said he is close to major agreements in India and Russia.

The first generation of Wi-Fi technology was limited in range, making it impractical for Foneros to share their routers widely. But a new wireless technology, known as 802.16, which should be more widely available to consumers over the next two years, will offer far greater ranges.

This next generation of wireless communication, called WiMax by Intel and others, may allow him to complete his dream in effect making it possible to weave together a wireless digital network in an urban area with nothing more than an army of Foneros willing to let their routers be used as micro cell towers.

In Europe, the Internet landscape looks more promising. The European Commission’s decision last summer to place a price cap on voice calls to make cellphones more affordable for residents traveling within the European Union didn’t include mobile data. Recent high-speed wireless networks introduced in Europe also use per-megabyte pricing, discouraging the streaming of large files like video.

That leaves a potentially big opportunity for a widely accessible sharing solution for travelers. Yet even in Europe, there are potential roadblocks, not the least of which has been a historically inhospitable atmosphere for entrepreneurial gambits.

“Europe has a larger market than the U.S.A., but it is culturally fragmented and risk-averse,” Mr. Varsavsky says. “But the differences are narrowing, and now there are European venture capitalists and a local entrepreneurial culture.”

PUBLIC radio is drawing its largest audience ever, some 28 million listeners nationwide each week. But if it’s a golden era, you wouldn’t know it from the frenetic activity to remake the genre.

In WNYC’s antiquated downtown Manhattan studios, the veteran National Public Radio and NBC journalist John Hockenberry and his co-host, Adaora Udoji, formerly of CNN, are rehearsing to find a comfortable rapport for their new live morning news program, which begins Monday. Flush from a $2 million Knight Foundation grant, this program, “The Takeaway” is designed with it partner, Public Radio International, and collaborators including The New York Times, the BBC World Service and the Boston public station WGBH, to be a stark counterpoint to the taped interviews on NPR’s venerable “Morning Edition.”

In the Chicago area, an 11-month-old FM station, :Vocalo, never mentions that it is affiliated with Chicago Public Radio. There’s no “All Things Considered” or “Car Talk”; instead hosts weave together interviews, commentary, reports and music, culled from user submissions to a companion Web site, vocalo.org.

NPR itself started the Web-radio hybrid “Bryant Park Project” last fall, hoping younger listeners would like to hear lively hosts banter about news and culture. And NPR’s year-old midday talk show “Tell Me More,” anchored by the former “Nightline” correspondent Michel Martin, aims at diverse new voices.

The urgency to find new formats is driven by audience research that can be read as glass half-empty or half-full. The 28 million weekly public radio listeners recorded by Arbitron in spring 2007 topped the previous high of 27.5 million in 2004. But the research also showed that the listeners were tuning in for shorter periods.

Public radio “had an enormous surge in listening over about a 10-year period from the mid ’90s up through about 2003, principally driven by a huge response to public radio’s news and information programming,” said Tom Thomas, co-chief executive officer of the Station Resource Group, a public radio consortium. But since 2003 “the audience has essentially been flat,” he said.

To address this, the consortium recently received a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant to identify ways to get the audience growing again, and “Everything is on the table,” Mr. Thomas said.

Last year some 1,400 people entered the Public Radio Talent Quest, an online search for new hosts run by the Public Radio Exchange, a Web site, prx.org, where independent radio producers market their content. None of the three winners — a science blogger, a slam poet and a nonprofit executive who is a storyteller — reflect that typical public radio sound, said Jake Shapiro, the exchange’s executive director.

Executives stress that the new programming won’t abandon in-depth news, just “get away from a tone that feels too clubby,” said Graham Griffith, executive producer of “The Takeaway.” Nor do they want to tinker with existing programs; they just want more options for more people.

“A lot of the research that guided public radio’s direction in the last 30 years focused on us discovering a niche we could serve and serve well,” of highly educated, news-craving listeners, said Maxie Jackson, WNYC’s senior director for program development. But, he added, that formula “didn’t appeal to people of color.” He called it an issue of tonality.

“The Takeaway,” Mr. Jackson said, could be a model. It will be interactive, he said, and multicultural, with “voices, perspectives, contributors and stories that are relevant to a wide swath of people.” Its tone, he said, “has to be more compelling, with more verve.”

“People want to feel that the hosts are committed to the topic,” he added.

At a recent run-through, an Iowa State University economist discussed global food riots, and an assistant professor at Morehouse College dissected the Atlanta Ballet’s collaboration with the hip-hop star Big Boi. Listeners were encouraged to comment online about how fuel costs would affect vacation plans.

The morning hours where radio thrives have become a battleground, even though NPR’s “Morning Edition,” with 12.9 million listeners a week, is the second-most-listened to national radio program, behind Rush Limbaugh’s.

NPR itself created “Bryant Park Project” because the organization is “mission-driven, and if we can reach more people, great,” said Ellen Weiss, NPR’s vice president for news.

The program had a tough start. One host, Luke Burbank, quit just before the first day, Oct. 1, although he didn’t leave until mid-December. The Remaining host, Alison Stewart, is on maternity leave. Online listening is growing, and with few broadcast stations carrying the program, a plan to go Internet-only has been discussed. Ms. Weiss said that would not happen but declined to discuss coming changes.

Meanwhile in February, with competition looming, NPR cut the fees to carry “Morning Edition” that stations had long complained about by a total of $5 million (to take effect next fiscal year).

Still, stations in Boston, Cape Cod, Baltimore, Miami and across Wisconsin have committed to give “The Takeaway” a try, although “Morning Edition” will still be widely available in those places. On WNYC “Morning Edition” will shrink to five hours between the AM and FM stations, to make way for two hours of “The Takeaway.”

By June 30 the new program will be broadcasting four hours daily, although not all stations will carry the whole thing. Mr. Griffith envisions “The Takeaway” as a “breakfast table,” where a nationwide conversation can take place. Mr. Hockenberry uses a more high-tech metaphor, calling it in an interview “a massive multiplayer game, the rules and title of which are, basically, curiosity.”

Intel unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for
schools on Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage
capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One
Laptop per Child organisation, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs - slated to go on sale in April for
between $US300 and $US500 - reflect the company’s growing efforts
to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in
developing countries, a battleground for technology companies
because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the
developed world as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down
machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest
in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,”
which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops
but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced on Wednesday
from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of
both 7-inch (18cm) and 9-inch (23cm) screens, a 30 gigabyte hard
disk drive and an integrated web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five
new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed
for pocket-size internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to
1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom
processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its
processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold
under a variety of brand names.
The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch
screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of
thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific
data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing
products.
The nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its
$US188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO
laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices, the
world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this
year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of
directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when
founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates
overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps
disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.
AP

Intel Corp. unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for schools Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One Laptop per Child organization, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs _ slated to go on sale in April for between $300 and $500 _ reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the U.S. as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,” which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced Wednesday from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of both 7-inch and 9-inch screens, a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive and an integrated Web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed for pocket-size Internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to 1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold under a variety of brand names. The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing products.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its $188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.

Intel Corp. unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for schools Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One Laptop per Child organization, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs _ slated to go on sale in April for between $300 and $500 _ reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the U.S. as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,” which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced Wednesday from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of both 7-inch and 9-inch screens, a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive and an integrated Web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed for pocket-size Internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to 1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold under a variety of brand names. The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing products.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its $188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.

Intel unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for
schools on Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage
capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One
Laptop per Child organisation, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs - slated to go on sale in April for
between $US300 and $US500 - reflect the company’s growing efforts
to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in
developing countries, a battleground for technology companies
because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the
developed world as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down
machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest
in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,”
which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops
but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced on Wednesday
from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of
both 7-inch (18cm) and 9-inch (23cm) screens, a 30 gigabyte hard
disk drive and an integrated web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five
new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed
for pocket-size internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to
1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom
processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its
processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold
under a variety of brand names.
The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch
screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of
thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific
data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing
products.
The nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its
$US188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO
laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices, the
world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this
year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of
directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when
founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates
overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps
disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.
AP

Intel unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for
schools on Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage
capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One
Laptop per Child organisation, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs - slated to go on sale in April for
between $US300 and $US500 - reflect the company’s growing efforts
to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in
developing countries, a battleground for technology companies
because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the
developed world as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down
machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest
in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,”
which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops
but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced on Wednesday
from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of
both 7-inch (18cm) and 9-inch (23cm) screens, a 30 gigabyte hard
disk drive and an integrated web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five
new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed
for pocket-size internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to
1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom
processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its
processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold
under a variety of brand names.
The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch
screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of
thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific
data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing
products.
The nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its
$US188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO
laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices, the
world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this
year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of
directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when
founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates
overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps
disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.
AP

Intel unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for
schools on Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage
capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One
Laptop per Child organisation, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs - slated to go on sale in April for
between $US300 and $US500 - reflect the company’s growing efforts
to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in
developing countries, a battleground for technology companies
because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the
developed world as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down
machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest
in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,”
which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops
but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced on Wednesday
from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of
both 7-inch (18cm) and 9-inch (23cm) screens, a 30 gigabyte hard
disk drive and an integrated web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five
new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed
for pocket-size internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to
1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom
processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its
processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold
under a variety of brand names.
The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch
screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of
thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific
data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing
products.
The nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its
$US188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO
laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices, the
world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this
year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of
directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when
founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates
overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps
disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.
AP

Intel Corp. unveiled new features for its line of low-cost laptops for schools Wednesday, adding bigger screens and more data storage capacity as the chip maker ratchets up its rivalry with the One Laptop per Child organization, which sells a competing machine.
Intel’s new Classmate PCs _ slated to go on sale in April for between $300 and $500 _ reflect the company’s growing efforts to sell computers equipped with its own chips to schools in developing countries, a battleground for technology companies because of the millions of people there just coming online.
But the target market has expanded to include kids in the U.S. as potential users of cheaper, stripped-down machines.
Classmate PCs also are part of Intel’s push to generate interest in a new class of mobile devices the company is calling “netbooks,” which are smaller and have fewer functions than standard laptops but also use far less power and are easier to carry around.
Other tweaks to the Classmate that Intel announced Wednesday from its developer forum in Shanghai include the availability of both 7-inch and 9-inch screens, a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive and an integrated Web camera.
At the developer forum, Intel executives also rolled out five new processors under the “Atom” brand name. The chips are designed for pocket-size Internet devices. The chips come in speeds up to 1.86 gigahertz while using less than 3 watts of power.
Intel said its Classmate PCs will eventually use Atom processors.
Classmates are based on Intel’s design and include its processors, but they are built by other manufacturers and sold under a variety of brand names. The first generation went on sale in March 2007 with the 7-inch screen and fewer functions. Intel said it has sold “tens of thousands” of the machines but declined to provide more specific data.
Intel and OLPC have feuded furiously over their competing products.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based nonprofit OLPC says it has sold hundreds of thousands of its $188 machines.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinoff’s low-cost XO laptop includes a microprocessor from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., the world’s No. 2 microprocessor maker behind Intel.
A short-lived truce between Intel and OLPC ended earlier this year when Intel suddenly pulled out from OLPC’s board of directors.
Intel claimed it couldn’t continue cooperating with OLPC when founder Nicholas Negroponte demanded Intel stop selling Classmates overseas. Negroponte said the dispute stemmed from Intel sales reps disparaging OLPC products while pushing Intel’s own machines.